#but hes so niche i cant make quotes of him | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

mrs-nate-humphrey · 3 years

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ok so we have seen over and over again people's assumptions about how gg main characters's instagrams would look like but how do you think their secret tumblr blogs would be? 👀

hmm! i just went over tumblr in general, because i don’t think all of them would have ‘secret’ tumblrs per say? everyone’s thing under the cut, cause it got SO long. i did not mention chuck because i don’t rlly see chuck as having a tumblr in any universe tbh - i feel like he would think it takes away from his businessy vibe or something.

dan's main would be something with a ts eliot url, like, a snippet from one of his poems, or it would be a whitman url, a snippet from a poem again (i see him with a whitman url of some kind & maybe his blog title is an eliot reference.) dan would 100% have the whole dark academia thing going in some ways, i think his blog would be organised as a grid, and he would reblog pictures of libraries, museums, occasionally of art, and also, quotes. so many quotes. so much literature. if you've been on tumblr long enough you know exactly the kind of blog i'm talking about.

dan's tumblr sideblog, on the contrary, would have nothing to link it to him. it'd probably be the tumblr default theme, pastel colours or something... i feel like dan is the specific genre of trans kid who uses a different set of pronouns online for anonymity purposes and then goes "wait a minute i like these pronouns BETTER". his url would be something extremely mundane and random like coffeeaddict779 or something, and it would be all #vent and #dont reblog. nobody who's following his sideblog knows what his main is, and vice versa.

serena would i think have one of those "be kind, do no harm :)" kind of hipster tumblr blogs, except she's incredibly sincere. she wouldn't have a sideblog, i don't think? and i don't think she'd attach her name to it in any way, probably just pronouns in bio and maybe a 'call me S'. she and dan would be mutuals on dan's main! her blog will be very, uh. aesthetic pictures, reblogs of dolphin videos and music and WIP art videos and anything else that'll catch her eye. she'll tag blair in fashion vids, nate in sailing posts, dan in literary stuff, and vanessa in film related/photography related things. she's having fun! every now and then she'll post a vent post but it's extremely vague and it's either something everyone who knows her irl already knows about her ('i hate my mom so much') or something that says practically nothing ('i am so worried about my brother and wish i could do more to help him.')

jenny's fashion inspo blog!!!! what more do you want me to say. she'd make it big in the fashion community and get anons all the time and she'd probably also have an etsy where she sells things she's sewn and made. everyone sort of knows she's an up and coming designer and she'd find a good community online hopefully!!! her blog would be something simple, with a url like jennydesigns or something (i bet that's taken rn, i havent checked) and her theme would be one of those themes that allows for u to have big images. she would probably post vents in the same way serena does, tag them #personal or #rambles, and have that neat code that allows for the tag to be filtered out whenever anyone views her page on desktop, you know?

i think eric would not have anything specific that he posts. he would just reblog random things - memes, things he finds interesting, jenny's original posts, stuff serena tags him in, cat videos, lgbtq+ positivity, etc. he'd try and stay out of drama (i think he'd turn anon off eventually.) he’d also post a lot of music reblogs or links, i feel?

vanessa's main blog would be one where she posts her own photos and films. because she's professional about it, it'd probably just be @ vanessaabrams. she'd have a sideblog specifically for reblogging other people’s work because she wants to support other artists, and it would be vanessareblogs or something like that, and her bio would mention “main tumblr @ vanessaabrams”. she’d be much adored in the photo/film community and just in general, because she’s one of the few people who hypes up other creators all the time and leaves nice comments in tags and all that. every now and then serena reblogs vanessa’s photography onto her blog and it almost always blows up, but vanessa doesn’t mind. i don’t think vanessa would have a vent blog or even a personal tag, she gives me big ‘i wanna keep my business totally off the net’ kind of vibes.

nate’s blog would be a lot like serena’s except, uh, more openly wanderlusty i think. a LOT of ocean reblogs. every now and then he reblogs keroauc quotes from dan which the girls find extremely hilarious. he talks a lot about sailing and gets a lot of sailing anons. he’d reblog a lot of positivity (mostly because he knows his friends are following him and he wants to brighten up their dash.) dan and vanessa jokingly dm him weed aesthetic posts all the time, but every time they do he reblogs and tags it ‘sent to me’ or somehting like that, and they cant decide whether to be flattered or embarrased. i think nate would also attract a lot of anons who ask for advice and it is something he never expected people coming to him for, but he definitely listens and shares whatever he’s got to say all the same. he’s this blog who should be weirdly niche but everyone sort of knows him and likes him.

saving the best for the last, lol. i have SO many thoughts about blair’s tumblrs.

i think she’d have a main tumblr that’s solely for classic film stuff (audrey! and more) and that’d be @ blairwaldorf, because, well, duh. i think she’d pay for a tumblr theme and get one of those really fancy and cute ones, like a floralcodes ms paint theme. i think she’d also have a sideblog that’s less serious, where she’d reblog things from tv shows, reblog things serena or nate have tagged her in, write her own meta for fandoms she’s in, just generally be a multifandom mess with a #personal tag but nothing too personal. it would still be classy, because she’s blair, but on this blog, she’s just a girl having fun.

and then she’d have a THIRD blog, a sideblog that doubles up as a vent blog. and this one isn’t linked to her other two in an obvious way, nobody knows it’s her, etc. on here she’d probably post a lot about her ed (but i think in a ‘i am struggling and i want to bitch’ way, not in a thinspo way - that’s a whole conversation i have no spoons for, so let’s not go there), she’d post about her insecurities and worries but it would be extremely untraceable. she’d have a fancy theme on this one too, despite it being a vent blog.

hm. now im thinking of the potential of like. dan and blair interacting super frequently on their vent blogs and neither of them knowing it’s the other person!

#meta #this was fun! thanks for the ask #i was initally gonna edit graphics #who knows i still may #but i realised that would take WAYYY too long #so have my words instead #anon #tumblr au #so i can find later if i need it

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mojaves · 3 years

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💤 🎁 ✏️ and 🎵 for cas !

YESS CAS TIME

💤 SLEEPING - do they fall asleep easily? what helps them sleep?

he used to be a VERY heavy sleeper nothing could ever wake him up and then. Well! akuze + becoming commander and literally everything else happened so now his sleep is definitely a lot more. Unsettled. than it used to be. he's a Very light sleeper now but. he and liara are there to comfort each other so it's Ok!! it's ok they can sleep now they can REST!!! it's OVER!!

🎁 PRESENT - what types of presents would they be most happy to receive? are they good at gift giving?

moderl ships. toy ships. hamster cage accessories. he goes crazy for it all. he is Not a good gift giver but he gives great hugs so that usually evens it out

✏️ PENCIL - is there a particular quote / lyric that you associate with them?

"may you be in heaven half an hour before the devil knows youre dead" bc of the gifset i made that one time and also the fact that entire scene w/ garrus is permanently etched into my skull and i think about it All The Time. im very normal about it it's fine

🎵 MUSIC NOTE - what is their playlist like? their favourite artists? do you associate a particular song with them?

you see i cant really pin this down very well like im Trying but he is So difficult for some reason fghkdxgkh like do i make him a diehard abba fan??? exclusively listens to europop?? does he listen to niche underground grunge bands from the late 90s??? who's to say!! not me i literally cannot decide. he is an enigma when it comes to music. what i CAN say for certain though is that he definitely has gimme gimme gimme blasting full volume in the mako at least 5 times a day

#oc cas #long post.#I LOVE TALKING ABT HIM THANK YTOU

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snoppy · 3 years

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@grocerytote OK OK SO im gonna quote ur points to explain, it turned super long so im tagging u here instead !!

in this context i take humans as the richer class, rats as the poorer (linguini and colette come into this as people who in a more evident money/status based hierarchy are underprivileged among the HUMANS, colette as a woman in a dominantly male profession and linguini as a visibly poor jobless-until-remy guy).

“ the vast differences between [remy] and [the humans] is so evident, from the way they talk to the obvious opportunities and advantages theyve had in comparison to remy, and solely because theyre from a wealthier class.” (apply what im saying to linguini and colette too, since theyre essentially in the same boat as remy but for the sake of the bigger metaphor i’ll talk about remy)

“ its so infuriating to watch them interact with [remy + rats] because we as the audience know full well that [remy] is as good as them in every aspect (maybe even better!!!!), but because hes from a lower rung on the class ladder hes severely disadvantaged in comparison to them.”

“ we as the audience know full well that [remy] possesses so much potential, but we also know that if [ego] hadnt come along and offered a metaphorical rope ladder to him, to [start his own restaurant] (we dont technically know this but he does get approval from someone high up in the social ladder who also interestingly comes from poorer backgrounds.)

i also feel like both kingsman and ratatouille as you said become parodies of the rich-poor metaphor (more of a metaphor with ratatouille, a metaphor which the creators were aware of, but eh). to come back to what you said at the beginning of your post, “ satire that makes fun of the wealthier class but also grudgingly elevates it to an even higher status” . thats kingsman.

i feel like ratatouille more fits into the niche of the disney stereotype which is “narrative that brings in deep or interesting social commentary through its characters and introduces problems into its story world, but either does nothing about it or makes us focus on the happy ending for the main circle of characters, ignoring the fact that its a widespread problem”. ratatouille TALKS a big game. it says that change is nature, and says that harmony is necessary. but in the end theres no change ! remy is still very much hidden, restaurant or not. he cant take credit for the food he makes, or give his family safety in regular society, rats as a whole are still very much despised.

he carves out a place with the help of similarly disadvantaged individuals to pursue his passions in secret but thats not really ...satisfying ? is it? for a movie that makes such revolutionary statements theres very little actual ... revolution. kingsman (in my opinion at least) makes a good job of showing us how different eggsy is and how this difference informs his opinions and way of thinking, but eggsy as an individual seems to not be bothered by the privilege, richness or whiteness of the kingsmen at all once he joins their ranks. jkenkejnfkn this probably makes no sense and is so LONG omg but anyway

#i just really like to talk about the poverty metaphors in ratatouille

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janexeu · 4 years

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though the mist might prevent some from seeing it, JANE MÁRQUEZ is actually a descendent of HYPNOS. it’s still a question of whether or not the TWENTY-SIX year old DEMIGOD ELEMENTARY EDUCATION MAJOR from NEW ORLEANS, USA has taken after HER godly parent completely, but the demigod is still known to be quite SACRIFICIAL & STUBBORN.

( she’s b-b-b-back on her bs : katya ! tis uhm ,,,, a lil bit of a chonk of an intro but ill try 2 b cute w it. any time u wanna yeet jus peep the gif again & forgive me bc Look At Her ! )

POWERS ( more info here )

hypnokinesis — p much made her a glorified babysitter w lynch-esque wacko dreams. it got stronger naturally as she got older, but jus w herself n eventually the ppl shes real close w. its also gotten a lot better since comin to eonia

seeing gods in dreams — she doesnt hang out w em every fridays at tgifs but like ,,, if she had Pertinent Questions she cud smhw make it happen. found out abt her being a demigod at age 10 when she met hypnos

memory retrieval — shes got great memry of her own but bc she knows it can help w grief n all that, shes been learnin in eonia how to do it 4 others if they mayb wanted it

BIO POINTS

her single ma died during childbirth so jane's been in the foster care system since 5ever. attempts at reunification nvr worked out but thankfully she got real lucky w her group home and foster families. twas stable enough to not emotionally scar her even further but the instability of it all was fosho a big ol’ lot and has influenced her rigidness in sum aspects of her life

she lived p much as a mortal even tho her powers r a lil freaky. never went to camp but it worked out bc all her abilities r internal and cannot be Perceived by others. she had a talk w hypnos abt what 2 do n he mentioned camps but also gave sum monster avoidance tips ( like rarely use ur powers, maybe learn self defense, yada yada ) n she jus ,,, did that so she cud continue livin real normal w the mortals. logistics of camp stressed her out esp bc shes livin w non-family n stuff yk it was All Too Much, miss her w the added demigod stress tyvm

got married at 23 to her childhood sweetums luis, but he ,,, died abt a yr later fr a car accident. coma for 2 weeks n jane p much slept the entire time in his hospital room, visitin his dreams n talkin to him. twas a life support sitch so they eventually decided to pull da plug whch was real sad but like she's processed it 2 da best of her abilities. her powers helped a lot in the coping too n she visits memories of him in her dreams smtms when it gets real sad then shes ok again bc life goes on n life is pretty uwu

bc of her bg round kids of all kinds, shes always been passionate abt em. always takin babysittin/tutor gigs and went to community college so she cud teach n then worked as an elem teacher. only started considerin goin 2 eonia 4 postgrad when she had a student who showed signs n strugglez of bein a demigod. she eventually got to talk to their godly parent 2 confirm n she was shocked pikachu meme, real concerned for all those youngins who hav no clue what to do ! or how to cope ! bc they cant facetime w the olympians lyk she can ! so cue her discussin eonia w luis a lot then a year after the accident, broke out the pro-con list again. took abt *checks watch* another yr til she finally decided to zoom 2 athens but then whoosh she did !

PERSONALITY

yearning ? idk her — shes can be a bit of a take it as is typa chick. can be a lil literal jsksj not dumb but like ,,, def doesnt read into things enuff to pine n long n year yk. some things might def fly over her head. she says Yes To Serotonin in this house. she dk the the mitskis n the sikens n the carsons ; its all mary oliver up in this joint. we just tryna luv life n be grateful folkz

le freak, say chic ! — control freak, that is. growin up in an unstable envi meant shed cling 2 stability n independence, wrvr she cud get it. so when it comes 2 the way she does things, she can be real a heel digger. also bc she has 2 deal w kids yk so it can b A Lot n shes v stern lyk dat. ofc she wont infantilize the eonians .,,,. or will she ? big sis vibes outta control. she means well tho always always means well. itll also b v hard to get her 2 giv up on sum1 bc life ? she luvs it n knows u can too

changes by david bowie — is decidedly skipped on the playlist. she doesnt like change !!! i mean she knows its inevitable but still not entire unavoidable. ever since she got out of the system, shes had a partner n her own way of doing things n its been workin out so why change it yk ? she says time may change me but jokes on u i can sorta trace time

rip but im different — this goes out to all em whores in this house. she respectz ur hustle but like ,,,, not her thang. girl doesnt even get drunk when she drinks bc she doesnt rlly drink sksjsk doesnt like the taste of it, big baby ! but like she's Lived, its more like. ok tried it, not for me. thanks tho. also for all the meanies in the house, y’all perplex her. shes empathetic n wont show the judgement but smtms shes lowkey lyk .,., ur how old n u had all this goin 4 u n ur still so rotten ? how u actin like a 7yo w a trantrum ? scratch head, make it make sense

at least u tried — dad jokes, bad puns, tries to be big jokester but isn't funny. she's pretty tho so she gets away with it. idk wht else 2 say ur honor. shes the type thatll embarrass u w affection

well that was Awkward — probably sum1 abt her if they see her actin a Fool bc shes in a foreign sitch or topic. when shes a fish outta water then she can be so ! easily ! flustered ! which is p much her in eonia. shes not new new but theres way 2 much godly shennanigans for her to wrap her head ‘round n sis has never gone to camp so its ice bucket challenge level shock from time to time still w da magics n lore

til death do us part — yknow when death cab for cutie said i knew that u wer a truth i wud rather lose than 2 hav nvr lain beside at all ? how abt when they wrecked me by rudely sayin love is watching sum1 die ? yes ? no ? nywy thats jane 4 ya. if she loves then shes in and if shes in then she is all in, luke danes stylez

was that a vivid enough picture or did i just word vom the same things agen n agen sjksjs jus know shes cute n sweet if a lil frustrating n annoying bc shes stubbornpants mcgee. may or may not have a slight compulsion to help fix other ppl ..,,.. someone set her str8 n tell her fix u by coldplay isnt it !!!

OTHER INFO

5′9″ born 4 october 1994, virgo sun n moon

not a freshie ! idk how long her program is but like ,,, lets ignore that 4 now ok jus kno that she been here a while

yogi & boxing enthusiast back at home. hc her mans got real into the martial arts w her when hypnos told her she gotta learn how 2 defend so that was one of their things : bonding by workouts so jane cud protecc herself if need be

her maiden name’s jane fulton. got her mommas surname but the name jane ? thats some jane doe bs some rando picked out for her which she hated at first but then seeing tarzan made her go hmmm, ok bet !

lgbtq+ alliance president ! identifies as pan

she met her late hubbie when they were abt 7ish, real friends 2 lovers cuteness. jane was there for him throughout his entire coming out & transition ergo her passion for the community esp queer kids bc she was That Cis Ally for her mans. wears her ring as a real lowkey necklace now

shes also real passionate abt sleep. will ask u how did u sleep last night p much every day u see her bc ppl spend like half their lives asleep catherine ofc shes gonna ask

her fave thing abt eonia ? the whole siblings bit. shes had 2 make do w what she got n build a family from scratch so this ? she luvs it a lot let her give u kithes hypnos babies

shes p well versed in the greek thingies but only thru the knowledge mortals gets + dream info. after her realizin who she is, all things ancient greek jus sorta became her niche interest ykwim ? shes not like Super Learned abt it more like ,,, ok i gotta at least make Sum sense outta all this, gotta learn what i can. imagin how embarrassin it wud b 2 see a god in ur dream n then go : sorry to this man. nope. not jane, not her, nuh-uh

luv languages : words, acts of service, physical touch !

useless hcs but she loves disney sfm ok. smtms dresses up as princess tiana for bday parties n shit bc shell do nythin 2 put a smile on the kids n babs faces

ya like jazz ? bc jane surely does ! adores motown & 60s music. nina simone owns her. no one drag peggy lee from 101 dalmatians ! not an important hc but i jus wanted to quote my bubble butt winged bee lover barry

POSSIBLE CONNECTIONS

children ! infants ! babies !

demigods that make her scratch head damn u live like this ? but also wud knife emoji to protect n care for. shes not the oldest on campus but shes been livin independently p much her entire life so she finks shes got a tight grasp on the myth that is Adulting

srsly tho the Big Sis vibes is off the charts w this one. shell perserve u dumdums

baddie influencies !

convince her 2 get drunk at a party ! bc she never does. convince her to maybe try drugs ! or go hook up ! do smths impulsive idk jus smth new !

gl tho bc shes not rlly ,,, easily influenced But she can b reasoned w ! in general i fink its just gonna be a fun dynamic if y/m knows how to coax sum wildness outta her or w/e bc thotty yummy theyre hotty yolo rzning jus wont do w this gal. will most likely get argumentative like a big ol momma hen but if u win then ur winning big

Sleep Now or forever hold ur peace !

idk sum1 she helps w their messy sleep ? shes def not super public w it, surely knows her other siblings r Better at it but if y’all are close, she probs enjoys doin it 4 ya. she runs her hair thru fingers a lot when she does it. like a lot a lot unless u tell her to get lost

lover boi, lover gorl, lover enby !

she can be a lil traditional when it comes to how she views rels. she wants all that meetcute courting bs ! no gender roles tho n u best be sure shes not constantly comparin w her late hubbie ,,, but she jus wants smth magical n 2 be wooed again yk ?

so yea ,,, crushers mayhaps ? sum1 who is tryin 2 woo her ? sum1 she had a meetcute w and now janes got lowkey heart eyes for em ? idk lotsa possiblities but pls keep in mind she is not good at the flirtings so hav mercy on her

eonia tour guide !

or jus friends who like ,,, constnatly fill her in w all the godly stuff n whatnot. years of not goin 2 camps mean u miss out on a lot ! explore ruins w her n get her info her mortal educ didnt make her privy 2 yk

head real empty atm i will think of sum n let y’all know when i do, but give us all the conekshunz. friends, enemies, the usual bit, lgbtq alliance peeps, lmk whats up whats done whats cookin we want it all

( shes p much a new muse n da result of me tryna bring in an emotionally healthy kid to this sad sad university. janes in a v good well-adjusted place rn n is my therapy muse bc that other bitch m** is a messy handful. but wbk life aint linear so mayhaps shit’ll hit da fan or one of y/m will ruin her lmfao press f pls ! but also color me eyes emoji bc we love to see it )

#euintro

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curlytemple · 4 years

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niche interests list

okay sure yes this is fun! i havent posted a thing like this in such a long time. thank you new gal pal @scottspack for tagging me!

pigs????

alright first lets throw it back to preschool! my fav childhood toys were my baby doll (snookums) and a plush pig that my grandma got me that i just called ‘pig’ ...i watched the babe movies countless times, and piglet? that anxious little guy GETS ME bro. when my preschool did a nativity play and my class got to choose an animal to be in baby jesus’ manger, my mother recalls me saying that i would be a pig because jewish people (jesus christ) wouldnt eat me. she has no idea how or when i learned about kosher foods. ironically despite my namesake i was too afraid of the movie charlotte’s web to watch it more than once because the scary farmer tries to kill wilbur for being small and the pretty spider dies.

sugar creek gang

OKAY this is a book series from the 40s-70s about a group of christian little boys in indiana who went on adventures in the woods and helped people. my dad read a LOT of chapter books to me as bedtime stories when i was little (see also the mandie series, nancy drew and the hardy boys, little house on the prairie) but sugar creek gang is one that really hit. i read all 36 books with dad and at least once again on my own. there was a series of 4 or 5 movies in the early 2000s when i was the Perfect age to have a crush on most if not all of them. this might be too much detail but i have to tell you about these boys. we WILL not be revisiting the heavy religious themes.

the narrator is bill who is Good and Kind and wants to be a doctor when he grows up. his best friend is a chubby boy nicknamed poetry because he memorizes and quotes poems, he is the Detective of the group. BIG JIM is the leader of the group who is supposed to be like, 14, which was very cool and hot, to me. and yes there is a little jim, who is the baby of the group. then there is CIRCUS who is known for his climbing and acrobatics, and his FIVE SISTERS AND BEAUTIFUL SINGING VOICE. dreamboy. i’m almost done listing boys, i promise. a boy called dragonfly who is allergic to everything and hella superstitious. later in the series a new boy named tom moves to town and tom has an older brother bob who is NOT A CHRISTIAN (bully)

tangentially, the buttercream gang, a movie from 1992 that was almost definitely made by some christians who grew up reading the sugar creek gang series which i’m guessing on vibes alone. will spare you Good Boy details but scott is in love with his best friend pete who moves to chicago and falls in with a bad crowd and scott just refuses to stop LOVING HIM. very gay christian film in retrospect.

peter pan

so i know liking disney’s peter pan isnt niche, but it was the way i liked it. tinker bell stan from day one, i watched all of those disney fairies movies, even the ones that came out after i was definitely not intended audience. there was an online pixie hollow game where you could design your own fairies and play mini games where you gathered dew drops or something. had a HUGE CRUSH on jeremy sumpter in peter pan (2003) then i got really darkly obsessed with the idea of growing up when i was 12 or 13, and everything peter pan was deeply My Shit for my entire adolescence. i read the original book and every other twisted version of the story i could find and seriously freaked myself out about wasting my youth.

shug

you’ve probably heard of jenny han now, or at least the netflix adaptations for to all the boys i’ve loved before and the sequel ps i still love you (always and forever, lara jean, coming soon?) but before she wrote THOSE, she wrote my first ever Favorite Book, about annemarie “shug” wilcox, a girl in the summer before starting middle school. it is SO engraved on my heart i cannot explain. i felt so incredibly understood and cant even tell you how many times i read it. thinking about all of the ways it made me feel SEEN is actually making me very tender so i’m gonna go on.

the summer series

on the subject of jenny han, since she was now my Favorite author, when she came out with the summer i turned pretty in 2009, i was ALL IN. it’s not summer without you, and we’ll always have summer were published the next two years. a coming of age series about a girl isabel “belly” conklin who stays at her mother’s best friend's house at the beach in the summers. i really could talk about it forever yall. i actually dont know how to be succinct about it. i will try. her mom’s friend has TWO BOYS. one brother, jeremiah, is the golden boy and her best friend who is in love with her! the older one CONRAD is her childhood crush who's just sort of around while belly is firmly getting over her childish feelings and going out and experiencing teen beach life with jeremiah for the first time and figuring out who she is and wants to be! by the end of the summer he admits he feels differently about her (hence belly internalizing this as The Summer I Turned Pretty) and they get together. this is already too much so i will just say that the next two books deal with a PROFOUND LOSS and the selfishness of grief and the SELFLESSNESS OF CONRAD and i will absolutely lose my shit if netflix picks it up for a second jenny han series adaptation.

pappyland

this was a kids show in the 90′s that features a character named Pappy Drew-It, an artist dressed like a 49er who lives in a magic cabin in pappyland. there’s tons of characters and music and life lessons but the meat of every episode is a detailed drawing how-to (pappy is actually a cartoonist, michael cariglio) and i have a hard back cover sketch book from my grandpa that i FILLED with drawings that pappy and DOODLEBUG taught me to do. there is a running gag that pappy always breaks his crayons.

boy meets world

i KNOW this is beloved by many but i’m counting it because i’m simply too young to have such an obsession with it! the show ran from 1992-2000. i was born in 1996, but reruns on the disney channel and abc family cemented it as one of my favorite shows. cory and shawn, closer than brothers, shameless homoromantics, shawn is cory’s first wife!!!!! truly showed me what a best friend can and should be!!!!!! the great love of your life!!!!! TOPANGA, the og weird feminist girl who said stop shaving your legs and start speaking your mind, ladies! the characters are so richly developed that they are real people to my heart. YES every character on this show is in their late 30s-early 40s and YES i feel like we grew up together. in season one they’re in the 6th grade and we follow them all the way to COLLEGE. countless poignant life lessons, often literally dictated by the wise and hilarious MR. FEENY, cory’s next door neighbor and somehow one of his teachers for YEARS. my love was only solidified by the 2014 girl meets world reboot, centered on cory and topanga’s daughter and her best friend. (which was literally cancelled because disney didn’t want to transition from a kids show to a teen show, something essential to the original. also because that teen show would have had CANON LESBIANS. extremely shameful move in 2017!) boy meets world lives rent free in my heart and i will never evict it!!!!!!!

i consulted my mother when i got stumped for more and she reminded me that i had obsessions with the impressionist art period and babies and ANYTHING fairies or pixies, and i was way too young when my love of the canadian teen after school special degrassi began. she also said bob ross, which i was hesitant to include because he’s been super ~trendy in recent years, but to be fair (To Be Faaairrr) she’s right! i don’t think people really watched the joy of painting as much as i have throughout my life. best sick day show of all time.

lastly i could honestly list anna herself as a niche interest, my mom actually metioned that ive always hyperfixated on my girl friends (gay) but i’ll just note that YES friday night lights, YES barry lyga novels. love to share so many things with you, niche or not, they’re niche in Our Mind.

#with the baby obsession came an obsession with adoption #my aunt and uncle adopted and when i learned that there were ORPHANS whew #i was in preschool judging people for getting pregnant when there were SO many babies without mommies #she had a good point!#also does being a niall girl in 2012 count

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mattgambler · 5 years

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Phoenix Point and why I want it to live

No TLDR this time. I said in the past that I could write pages over pages about this. I guess its time to see how many pages we are actually talking about here. Phoenix Point is currently rather mediocre. From the soundtrack to the many bugs and rather rough implementations, the missing features that were envisioned in the kickstarter campaign, the 5 scheduled DLCS, the epic store exclusivity, the inferior graphical polish in comparison to Firaxis’ XCOM reboot, the inferior complexity in comparison to Longwar, probably even the inferior Idontknow in comparison to the very first XCOM games from way back when, I didnt play those. If you are looking for something to hate in this game, you dont have to look too hard, there is something here for everyone. The reason Ive been a determined defender of Phoenix Point is not simply because I have a different taste in games than the mainstream however, but because I feel there is a way deeper underlying problem at work here. I’ll come back to that later. Btw starting now, when I say XCOM, I mean Firaxis’ XCOM. Personally I want more games like XCOM. More games like Battlebrothers, Mordheim: City of the Damned, Invisible Inc, hell, even Bloodbowl, even though I dont dig the sports angle. Games with permadeath, nameable characters, dynamic overworld systems and missions and situations that are created ideally by circumstance, not by simply playing mission 1, then mission 2, until you reach what the devs decided to be the last one they would make for the game. I thoroughly enjoy that concept of progression and many turnbased strategy titles just dont do it for me because they are too linear, even when they are otherwise nicely crafted experiences. Druidstone: The Secret of the Menhir Forest is a nice example of this, the game looks nice, sounds nice and is very well made, but it lacks the one thing I enjoy most in all the games I mentioned earlier. Along comes Phoenix Point and the moment I look at this game I know that it is all about scratching that specific itch. Not only that, it also brings with it a variety of creative features to even improve the established turnbased squad tactics formula. I didnt lie when I said I think that it is in many ways better than XCOM. Just that... WHAT?!?! ...the overall game doesnt compare well if we look at the sum of their parts at the moment. YOU CANT BE SERIOUS!!!!! About Phoenix Point being better in many ways? Sure, let me make a list. 1) Aiming In XCOM you aim, you have an x% chance to hit, you either hit or you dont. While widely accepted because of the quality of the overall games, its a pretty simple system that becomes especially frustrating when your guns model on screen is touching the enemies forehead and you still manage to miss. Or when a flashbanged and suppressed sectoid crits you in full cover after rolling a natural 20. In Phoenix Point bullets get simulated and trace a path from the barrel of your gun to a target that they then either hit or miss. Smaller enemies in Phoenix Point are hard to hit not because the game designers arbitrarily decided so, but because smaller enemies are simply smaller. In comparison, in XCOM you roll dice. 2) Modular enemies Similar to Battlebrothers, Phoenix Point has you encounter the same brigand thug (crabmen) over and over again. The enemy itself doesnt matter as much, its more about the number of different variations you can encounter. Brigant thugs can come equipped with simple helmets and/or armor as well as different weapons that have different abilities. They also have different faces on top of that. They are by far not the only enemy in the game, but even if they were, by the time you encounter the exact same thug a second time you wont be able to tell anymore because you have seen so many others inbetween. The same goes for most enemies in Battlebrothers (with a few exceptions), it becomes way more about your opponents equipment than about his actual type or class. Phoenix Point goes for the very same approach, but falls short because of a variety of reasons. To name just one, the first time you encounter New Jericho as a faction, you fight four New Jericho soldiers and all four of them have the same armor, the same weapon and even the same face. To hammer it home the mission also always takes place on a variation of the exact same map. It is an absolute travesty. The ambition is there and in random encounters on the map you can see where it is supposed to go, with every enemy type in the game being designed in a way that allows for as many variations as the devs can think of, from paralysis tentacles and bloodsucking arms to mist generators and everything inbetween. The possibilities are endless and from the standard crab to the giant bosses every enemy is designed with this modularity in mind. In XCOM in comparison, you have a variety of different enemies, but for the entirety of the first month (what is that, 3-7 missions?) you only fight the sectoid. Or maybe the drone too, I havent played vanilla in forever. Longwar tries to spice that up by using preexisting models and assigning new abilities to them, making some models bigger and giving others new abilities, but at the end of the day the sectoid looks the way the sectoid looks. I love what it looks like btw. But modular enemies are decidedly cooler. 3) Scale In XCOM you control 4, later up to 6 soldiers at the same time. In Longwar it goes up to 8, or 12 in that one mission. In Phoenix Point you start out the same way, but to my knowledge you can bring as many soldiers to any mission as you can get there via aircraft. Meaning that as soon as you get a second manticore you can theoretically have up to 12 soldiers in a mission, or 18 with a third. Naturally you would probably want to split your forces instead and be in 3 places at the same time (and you can), but this sort of thing being possible, both the 18 soldiers in one mission as well as the 3 different squads doing missions in 3 different places of the planet, is something XCOM simply does not offer. 4) Other features Be it vehicles, giant enemies, diplomacy or the amount of control you get on the overworld map, Phoenix Point does (or attempts to do) a huge number of things that in XCOM are simply nonexistant. In XCOM you dont get to decide were to fly, missions are simply spawned in popup fashion, the skyranger is on autopilot, “diplomacy” is managed by talking to top secret bald guy representing the council and by sometimes fulfilling a councilrequest. The only opposing faction apart from the aliens is EXALT which can be regarded as more of a separate mission type with human enemies and not really as a faction that contributes in any diplomatic way. Dont get me wrong, I dont think XCOM needs diplomacy in order to be good. XCOM is already good, fantastic in fact. But if we compare based on features alone and not the quality of their implementation, then Phoenix Point is doing A LOT of things that XCOM never even touched. This is in no way me trying to trash XCOM. I love XCOM, especially Longwar. However for the sake of an at least somewhat fair comparison the only games we should compare Phoenix Point to at this Point are XCOM Enemy Unknown and XCOM 2, both at launch. Bringing Longwar into the mix is something I do for the sake of providing a third angle, not because I am blind to the fact of how ludacris it would be to compare a newly launched game with an extensive overhaul mod that was in the making for years after the vanilla game and even its expansion were already released. As I was saying, along comes Phoenix Point doing all those very ambitious things. And it gets DESTROYED. To quote Beaglerush, the probably best known XCOM streamer out there: “But honestly, for anyone with experience in the XCOM genre, anyone who likes XCOM games, and anyone particularly who likes XCOM games at a harder difficulty or likes to obviously, like, play well, I do not think it is possible to enjoy this game unless you are getting a big paycheck and you are a good actor.” To be clear, I didnt watch the entire footage that made him come to that conclusion and I dont want to comment too much on what “playing well” means, but i have played Longwar on the highest difficulty in ironmanmode for 2000 hours (without beating it, but also always with Training Roulette active) and I have beaten XCOM 2 on highest difficulty in ironman mode. I do consider Longwar as one of my favourite games of all time and I do consider myself as someone who has experience with the genre, likes games and likes to play them “well”, or at least on highest difficulty. I dont agree with Beagle (duh), but I can of course see where he might be coming from. In its current state Phoenix Point is not finished. Playable, but even for an early access game its still pretty rough, with many mechanics not or only sometimes working (leanout, aim and aimsnapping, end turn, details, you get the point), features missing, performance issues, lackluster soldier customization, lackluster diplomacy options, a rather simple skilltree, questionable balance, etc. Don’t look at me like that, if I wanted to I could jump that hatetrain any time! But if I was to do that, where would that leave us? The XCOM genre, as Beagle calls it, is a niche genre at the best of times. Not only regarding the playerbase but also regarding game developers willing to invest time and money into creating something new. Xenonauts 2 is a year or more behind its originally panned release date with not much news to speak of, Terra Invicta is a distant memory of a game that will maybe one day still be released and Im still waiting for the XCOM 3 announcement and who knows if it will even come. Especially after we, the players, completely demolish Phoenix Point to the point where I would just cancel the 5 planned DLCS right now if I was in charge of the devteam. The main reason I defended Phoenix Point was not because of what the game currently is but because of what the game could be after 5 more DLCs. Ive played every backerbuild of the game and statements like “the game is still what it was 2 years ago” are simply and factually false. Especially between backerbuild 4 and 5 there was a huge jump in quality and between 5 and the release version that same jump has ocurred again - with an entire game that is now playable and completable. Yes, it could have more voiced lines instead of text, yes, it doesnt have the sexy “alerted sectoid” animation sequence when you run into a new enemy pod (pods dont exist in PP but you get me) and sure, the epic exclusive sucks I guess and I dont care much for the soundtrack. But after Backerbuild 5, who knows where the game will be after the next DLC? And the next? If you compare XCOM Enemy Unknown with XCOM Enemy Within, the difference was breathtaking. And here we have a game that has so much work already done, so many assets created, so much code already in place, and we, the players, punch them in the face and shout “NOT GOOD ENOUGH!”. You wanna go back to the drawing board, have somebody else start fresh on something that could be better in a year or two if we are lucky? Ive been looking for a game like XCOM for literally years. Battle Brothers was the closest I found. Tens, if not hundreds of others inbetween failed hard, from “Warhammer 40k: Mechanicus” to “Legends: Viking” to “Wildermyth” and basically everything inbetween. And here we have a game that seems to have the right idea, the right amount of ambition and a good amount of the work already done and we are bitchslapping them left and right just so we can go back to getting hyped about the next mediocre linear story experience. Sure, them releasing already is a shame. But if I was the one to decide, I would give them the same amount of money again and triple it and tell them to finish the job instead of spitting in their face when they come to us and lowkey tell us that they ran out of money. And I would send them flowers and tell them that Im sorry. Anybody can polish a game with extra cash, but getting the core idea right is something that even Firaxis almost failed to do with XCOM 2, as far as Im concerned. I said earlier, that there was a deeper underlying problem here and that I would come back to it and here it is, ladies and gentlemen. Modernday gamers are an ungrateful, hateful bunch of whiny spoiled brats, who think they are entitled to only the best of the best while in fact they “deserve” nothing. The entire concept of a kickstarter campaign is that you provide funds and trust so a bunch of people can try to realize their vision. If you dont like the outcome, then that doesnt mean they betrayed you, it means you have poor judgement. Notice how I say judgement and not taste. You dont have poor judgement because you dont like the outcome, but because you gave them money in the first place. I should maybe add at this point that my anger is mostly directed towards the public reaction and the phoenix point subreddit and not towards my own viewership. (hello) Phoenix Point is not the first game that has had me feel like the entire gaming landscape is slowly spiraling out of control. 5 years ago I thought quality means sales. At this point Im worried that a high marketing budget means sales. And I dread the possibility that 5 years from now I might be convinced that a high marketing budget means quality. Some of the best games this year were literally destroyed by players. Artifact wasn’t only boykotted, but actively brutalized, with people at some point purposefully streaming porn and torture under the Artifact tag on Twitch. Pathologic 2 had the devteam almost go bankrupt after poor sales and unfavourable reviews by people that barely grasped the basics of the game. All the while people feed money to the ginormous immortal that is Magic The Gathering and praise Hideo Kojima for his “unique vision” for Death Stranding. I didnt play Death Stranding and Magic can be pretty fun, but does nobody see the smothering double standards in play here? Im not saying that Phoenix Point has no problems right now in terms of quality. Some of the issues player encounter are in fact inexcusable, at least longterm. But XCOM 2 also had a bumpy launch with long loading times and tons of bugs and then they were fixed and today there are people that think XCOM 2 is better than Longwar. Incomprehensible to me how anyone could think that, but time and some postlaunch fixes did clearly change peoples minds. I think the main reason Phoenix Point got so much hate on launch in comparison to XCOM 2 (which also released 3 DLCs ,or was it more) is because its drastically different and more ambitious in many ways, not because it is half as bad as people make it out to be. XCOM is just like Phoenix Point, just dumbed down I guess. Kappa. (I hate it when people use the term “dumbed down”. This is a joke. Ffs why do I have to explain this)

#XCOM #Phoenix Point

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robertwalton · 6 years

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its time for me to pick a random song that makes me cry and analyze it against frankenstein quotes

“i've had time to write a book about the way you act and look but i haven't got a paragraph words are always getting in my way anyway, i love you”

- “that’s all i’ve got to say” (the last unicorn)

heres the context of the song: prince lir is singing to someone hes fallen in love with, but shes dealing with other SHIT right now. shes got Other Stuff On Her Mind and she cant really afford to think about him. ill just state it directly, robert and lir are both pining in the worst way. meanwhile, lir -

“i'm not a man of poetry music isn't one with me it runs from me”

- keeps claiming that he has no idea how to articulate his feelings... which is true, but hes actually expressing himself pretty well in the song, shes just not listening

robert walton is in the same boat (haha).

“I imagined that I also might obtain a niche in the temple where the names of Homer and Shakespeare are consecrated. You are well acquainted with my failure and how heavily I bore the disappointment.”

hes saying he tried to be a writer and failed and took it badly. “Now I am twenty-eight and am in reality more illiterate than many schoolboys of fifteen,” he says, like an asshole. i mean, frankenstein has gorgeous writing all the way through, but robert walton’s sections singlehandedly captured my heart, so who is he to go around saying he cant write

but he really believes it!!! he wants to write poetry but he cant. he wants to be romantic but it embarrasses him. he doesnt know how to DO it. he gets so self-conscious in his letters to margaret, saying repeatedly that shes going to think hes being too romantic, and he “greatly need[s] a friend” who wont laugh at him

and yet robert “words are always getting in my way” walton is SO long winded whenever hes praising victor!! he writes endless paragraphs in rapture about his eyes and expressions and voice. its like he doesnt know how to just... tell victor. the truth. that he loves him.

(to be fair, theres no way to know if robert is less or more forthcoming in person TO victor than he is in his letters to margaret. but since frankenstein has a lot of themes about repression, i doubt robert is capable of just confessing like that. if he’d done more than gush, maybe victor wouldve found enough strength to hold on until they got back to england. gay rights)

#frankenstein #im deliberately putting a link in this post so it doesnt show up in the tag cuz this whole post is embarrassing.#im just very much in love with romance #gay tag

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elliot-orion · 4 years

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Writeblr Re-Intro

I’ve seen quite a few people do this in the past couple weeks so i figure i probably should too considering how stinking long its been. so. hi there! I’m Elliot, and I use they/them pronouns! I’m a college kid majoring in creative writing and anthropology and regret doing both. I have a 9 year old emotional support cat, Van Gogh, who enjoys snoring, getting fur in my mouth, and chewing on my headphones. In addition to writing, I crochet amigurumis, play flight rising, bake like mad, obsess over dragons and stuffed animals, and spend way too much time thinking about superheroes.

I mostly write LGBT+ Young Adult/New Adult fiction, and recently published my first novel, “Sparks Fly.” You can see a tumblr summary of it here. “Sparks Fly” and the majority of my stories take place in the expansive Dark Heart Universe full of not so heroic Super Heroes and Super Villains with questionable but not necessarily bad morals. But I like to dabble all over and have WIPs including a horror duology, a scifi roadtrip story, and about 800 other WIPs that are going nowhere because I’m a pantser and that’s how i roll. Expect to see me name drop some characters or a story, tag it in one ask game, and then never mention it again rather frequently. I apologize in advance. The main stories you will actually see me mentioning a bunch are below the cut.

I technically have a website, and I technically have a twitter, but the former is a mess because I can’t program or remember to regularly blog and the latter i never use because social media scares me. Think there’s like 10 tweets on it and all of them are niche shitposts about my stories so... yea. I do have a Pinterest though, where you can find boards for most of my stories as well as a few of the name dropped once stories. so that’s fun. This intro is a mess.... Anyways, below the cut are some quick summaries of my main WIPs. If you want to learn more about the world that half of these are a part of (the DHU), look through this tag because my only summary series of it is way out of date.

Woodsmoke

A DHU novel. Woodsmoke is a Hero who 100% should not be going to the worst Villain in town, Stardust, for help, but fuck it he doesnt have any other option. In return for helping Woodsmoke save a whole bunch of school kids, Stardust demands Woodsmoke owes him a favor - he has to help Stardust and his gang get rid of the Director of the city’s Supers Association branch. The only probably is, the Director control everything, and Woodsmoke is utterly terrified of him. But, he owes a favor, and he’s even more afraid of what Stardust could do to civilians than he is of what the Director could do to him. When it all goes wrong, maybe its time for him to give up being a Hero and stop being Woodsmoke. Maybe it’s time to just be Vincent again, and finally heal from the damage the SA has done. This is on its fourth draft and still needs about 2 or so more (guessing here), but will hopefully be the next DHU book released (dont quote me on that im winging this)

Nightmare at the Lily Pad Inn

A DHU novel. Ben, who’s technically a Villain but really just can’t control their powers for shit and their powers are like, really scary so its bad, is on the run from their sociopathic asshole brother. They wind up at the Lily Pad Inn, a safe haven for Villains no matter what they’ve done, run by the cinnamon roll sweetheart Matty and their husband, Blue. While there, Ben meets Oliver, another not-technically-bad Super who can’t control his powers, and meets up with Morty, their best friend. Shit happens i guess idk i’ve not written a real summary for this one yet leave me alone. It’s on the first draft and its not even finished and i have no idea what the ending is because im a pantser go away.

Novella Collection

A DHU collection i guess. I’m not quite sure what else to call this because it’s made of three or so different novellas that I intend to fit together into a collection of novellas. The three novellas includes: the Empath, about Charlie who may just be the worlds most powerful empath and his partners who are very not happy with their area’s Director wanting Charlie to do something that could 100% kill him; Hell in High Heels, a historical DHU story about the Terra (Kitty), the Earth Elemental of the time, and Fer-De-Lance (Hattie), the Poison Elemental, and how they get married sorta unwillingly (thanks SA), break a shit ton of stereotypes, and help win World War 2.; and finally Wildfire, about the current day Fire Elemental and the Villain he really shouldn’t be so attracted to but 100% is and them chilling and being gay and idk this one needs a lot of work. All of these novellas have only had 1 draft and are still needing a lot of work.

And now for some not dhu stories...

The Other Beings / The Doll Maker

This is that horror duology I mentioned earlier. The Other Beings follow Nathan. He got sucked into the terrifying world of the Other Beings (well, 5 worlds actually), when he was 7 years old because of a brother he’s never quite forgiven for making him and his pseudo-sister Hazel hunt minor Beings for his whole childhood and fucking Nate up massively. He managed to leave the horror of the Other Beings for all of seven years before he was sucked back in by the Doll Maker, an Other Being with a penchant for turning pretty children and people into ball-jointed dolls. Turns out a horde of Other Beings is coming after him because of his dad which is a Bad and now he’s having to run as a human macguffin and trust me - he’s not happy about it. Only the Other Beings draft 1 has been written because it’s a dark story and with covid i have not have the mental energy to work on it more, but it’s super fun and i adore it. The Doll Maker, the second book, is solely about Doll Maker and his shit.

Paper Stars

Paper Stars is the scifi I mentioned, and just might be one of my favorite things I’ve ever written, even though its only had one draft because it’s hella depressing (literally, the mc River is seriously suicidal) and with all the shit in my life rn i haven’t had the strength to work on it more. but i adore the story. Basically, River’s life has gone to hell since his Grandpa died and the only thing making him hold on is really his alien best friend, Keio. When his depression gets even worse, he finally asks Keio to take him away from Earth and to space to escape his problems. This works, kinda, i mean he falls in love and shit (yes River falls in love with a seal furry alien, please go through the tag its great), but eventually he knows he has to face his problems and get help because this is a realistic story about depression and love doesnt cure all and you cant run from mental illness. It’s great.

That’s kinda all the main stories i mention a lot, all the others are little things i start and stop or that i write a self indulgent first draft but never intend to take it any further. all of these i fully intend to publish one day tho. So... yea. Welcome to my blog, its chaos but we have a good time.

#Intro #intro post #dhu #woodsmoke #nlpi #nightmare at the lily pad inn #wildfire #hell in high heels #paper stars #the doll maker #the empath #writelr #My writing #writeblr #amwriting

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kendrixtermina · 7 years

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Baby Reacts to “Voltron Season 3″

SPOILERS

Episode 1

So That's Zarkon without his helmet

It seems that a timeskip has taken place and that everyone has been taking up Shiro's absence with a stiff upper lip

Alluras 1000 yard state

Note how when everyone mentions how important meeting Shiro was to them, Keith again doesn't explain about their earlier meeting

So the BoM guys just jump out. Yep, yep, I can see Keith being related to some of them.

Seems like the Paladins and the BoM are fully allies now, they interact with Kolivan rather casually here

So hunks claw thing can attack defensively, too!

Interesting how we get to see this whole bunch of Galra & their range of features, something of their society

act merciful then reassign him to space siberia. That's one establishing character moment right there.

But one interesting thing here is that while he's sneaky and manipulative he IS a fighter.

Keith is not the world's most diplomatic person but what he's saying IS the truth

Episode 2

I guess a theme of this episode seems to be that the characters are all capable of more than their straightfoward designated 1D roles.

It's not just lance they were all sorta identified with their niches.

Hunk loving Yellow so much is so adorabs tho

Reminds me of this thing in guilty crown where a once wimpy character was inspired to „become“ a more confident one

Quirky miniboss squad has varied designs.Lotor has such a punchable face

Episode 3

So they go in when they can barely fly... They were fairly ragtag when Shiro took over tho – It wasn't TOOO bad thinking from Keith, he thought of placing the tracer

So Lotor's a genius pilot, too. They even THINK similarly „Don't waste the enemy's time of weakness.“

Again the formation gag

Allura is REALLY not good at this

So there is a „Voltron Feeling“, intersting

I feel ya so much Keith. I can't into group activities either.

Thing is he is actually a good planner he can even bark out orders well but he's used to risking & utilizing only himself with no further consquences.

I just hope the discourse squad isn't gonna hate on him too much, like, he said he wasn't cut out for it he's improvising as best as he can

There's a little Zethrid in all of us

Lance has this complex of not having a special role, but, he's kinda the ~Versatile~ guy, stepping into whatever roles are needed (just like water flows & changes shape)

& right here he's trying hard to be the glue

It's sort of a reversion because usually it's the charismatic guy who's the leader and the prioritize-the-mission guy who is number two (See Kirk & Spock)

Still I would like to stress that what Keith's doing here is his consistent trait of prioritizing the objective

I did not expect Allura to get this deep character moment but it makes sense

I wonder what we can infer from this about lance; Blue remains mysterious

They're all getting into it~

Oh Transformation sequence, how I missed thee

„I'm a leg“ Yeah now we know we've seen Allura without her mask

I must admit I got a mild case of the feels at this point

Opportunity, heh? He's got a plan. Probably capturing it for himself

Ep 4

Well this one cuts to the chase right away. Not much downtime this season.

Again I didn't expect Allura to get the focus this season.

Not having Shiro as a co-leader is srly fraying her nerves & making her feel the burden of her task. From the beginning she was always characterized as somewhere being an ordinary girl put portraying strenght because of the burden of her father's legacy – When you think about it, she is so, so stranded & this possibility is gonna compromise her bigtime

It's kinda like the plot of „The Doctor's Wife“

There comes another favorite, the negative space wedgie

I like it when the technobabble includes references to how they are actually determining things („Gravity isn't being diverted“ etc. )

Its like a magic Event horizon!

Poor Coran what has he done to deserve this

Aaand the creepy abandoned ship trope! Delightfully Star Trek Esque

Aaand the apocalyptic log trope

Aaand the Paralel Universe! They're sampling all of TOS here

That's it I'm officially christening this episove Vol Trek

Yep, it's the Mirror Universe! Please tell me Mirror Keith has a beard

Im glad I know enough to catch the „Sven“ reference

I did not expect Alternate Realities to actually show up

I wonder, was there some historical crossroads where Alfor makes the deal with the Devil rather than Zarkon? Are we gonna meet Good!Lotor as this 'verses Allura?

And lool the alternate Sentries

Im SO LOVING THIS EPISODE I CANT EVEN

It's not Alfor, it's ALLURA who's alternate Zarkon? That's gonna screw with her head

Her whole Arc in season 2 was growing out of the black & white Mindset that Zarkon's betrayal left her in (ie, realizing the BoM and Keith are good, finding out the evil Haggar is Altean) but this takes „For Want Of A Nail“ even further

Didn't we see that blue haired altean techie in the background in one of the black lion's flashbacks?

Aaaand we're getting more detail on what Voltron even is

A VOIDSHIP now we're doing Doctor who, too?

Are they not evil or is Allura just not getting it? Poor girl she's in for a schock especially since the Galra homeworld was supposedly destroyed – Did Zarkon act out of revenge, too?

Aww Slav has faith in them... kind of.

UGH They are WORSE than Zarkon because they have more advanced technology

OOHHHH THIS IS GOOD THIS IS GOOD THIS IS SO GOOD

Also Mindfuckey

Do they have their own BoM counterpart, too?

I did not expect this how did they do so much in so little time

Aww the Space Mice hugging each other :(

Ah and now Sven is gonna die for a continuity joke

Any moment now, they're gonna say „He was rather like our Mister Spock.“

Iwho knew Slav could be cool?

It's also worth mentioning that Keith kickied lots of butt in this ep

Lotor's plan kind of allmost got his whole universe invaded by brainwashing dimension hoppers tho

So it WAS a trap

Damn Lotor's manipulative. He knew this would get Allura.

Ep 5

A tank? Are we now going Pokemon? Or possibly Evangelion?

This started slow but now it keeps sucker-punching us

SHIRO and he's got Hermit Hair.

OOOH Not AgAIN This must be so retraumatitzing for him

We've gone F.E.A.R. As it would seem.

No, It's fucking LAIN

Ohh I do love symbolic mindfuck sequences

He's supposed to look all ragged but he's so hot with this hair lenght

Everything about the cinematography here is just perfect

So there's Haggar-

Kuwagamon is that you?

Interesting perspective with Lotor's faction & the rest

I just noticed that Lotor does, just slightly, have fangs.

Ohh I see Shiro's PoV is happening in parallel.. they were so close!

Shiro is badass as usual

Ohh Lotor, do I sense daddy issues? Or maybe just a drive to prove himself.

Haggar's right tho, with all his ideas & somewhat obsessive/ singleminded tendencies he's actually a lot more like his father than his demeanor suggests.

Again Paralellism to Allura & Keith trying to fill the shoes of Alfor and Shiro respectively

So in the end Shiro found THEM before they found HIM

Still, a bit anticlimatic; I'd expected more of a finale than just „The lion senses him“ & no explanation for what happened, or will that be filled in later?

Alien Ramen.

So... that didn't contain what I think it would & contained lots of stuff I didn't see coming. In a way it was a huge break from the format, really nonstop plot instead of the previous slower pacing & focus on character interactions.

I would have expected the revelations from season 2 to play more of a role (Keith's origin, Allura's newfound magical capabilities, who or what is Haggar)

I mean it makes sense because it's an exceptional situation with Shiro being gone & Lotor hot on their tails. I wonder what season 4 is gonna be like, thankfully it might be there soon.

It's been a bit since we had a Hunk or Pidge episode & I was looking forward to less utilized interactions such as Shiro with Lance & Hunk or a episode where Pidge & Keith go on a mission together

IDK there's so many dangling plot threads and now there's MORE but even so most of this was good writing when seen for itself.

There wasn't a lot of Pidge content which isn't that bad given that she got to be showstealingly hypercompetent in the last two seasons but they better give us a Hunk episode in October.

Ep 6

Ahh, Sharpshooter

Let us appreciate Keith's casual massacre skills. He tough

Cool thinking Lance!

So Allura's weapon is a flowy gymnastic ribbons thingy... kinda like a shinier version of that whip Zarkon's so fond of tho

I'm glad we got to see her kick butt with it before handing the Blue Lion back to lance

This fight scene well utilizes the bunch

AH now there's explanations, or at least an aknowledgement of a need for one. And again we see that Keith & Shiro sort of have a special confidence between them. Shiro allows himself to sound audibly distraught here. He looks to weird in such casual clothes, too. We never saw his pajamas in ep 2 so I guess now we know.

At which point during these last few eps did Keith acquire those bags under his eyes? Is it me or does he seem a lot more in control? Or perhaps its just the familiarity.

That moment at the end tho, aww. No one minds saving you, Shiro, because they all LOVE YOU TO BITS, especially Keith.

Ahhh I wanted him to keep the hair. But I guess he is the proper sort/ feel a bit less like a plant when he's clean-shaven. Yes bby tell them how proud you are.

Pidge and Hunk talk engineering why Lance makes a face in the background <3 All the nerd conversations plz

No. No. NOOO LANCE WHAT ARE YOU SAYING

It shows how much both have matured but, NO. I did not see that coming ouch nor did that conondrum occur to me. Hence I see why Shiro coming back was not the final climax

That moment when Shiro & Keith talk at the same time out of habit tho.

What's going on THERE? Sabotage by Haggar?

I didn't think they could wrap much up but it's going fast.

...Keith has always been quick to just pack up & withdraw hasn't he? I guess that quote about Alfor becomes relevant again here. Aaand another plot twist why do I even bother with the pause button. How's this even gonna continue, is Shiro just gonna do mission control from now on? I'm gonna miss Keith doing Keith stunts if he's gonna be tied up as the boss man.

Even so, the teleport question is still no answered.

Was Shiro Ayanami'd somehow? (replaced by a clone or something)

I was beginning to think they couldn't wrap up THAT much in just 2 episodes but they seem to have taken this as a challenge. T'is a rolacoaster.

Hey isn't that the guy from the first episode? In any case you almost have to sympathize with that random Galra comander. Poor bastard. Two invading parties. +Is there gonna be a confrontation now? Keith Kogane and the Halfblood Prince. Ohh this buildup of epic music cant be good

the four way battle with the generals was interesting/ pretty cool like theres one for each of them to smash. Are they setting up miss scaultrite thief for a high heel face turne? I hope not that would kind of be trite.Some are saying she might be part of his long-lot family, but wasn’t Keith’s mom supposed to have been with Marmorites instead of the Empire?

Keith PLUS mission control Shiro would seem to be its wholly new desaster to adjust to. Keith did not ask for nor deserve this you can tell he hates every minute of it.

Ep 7

At this point its srly weird how the opening is still the same, especially after they set up all those elemental associations for everyone's original lions.

So lotors mom WAS altean but it wasn't Haggar herself as far as I can tell.

I'm smelling a gendo ikari type backstory here but i hope theyll be creative about whatever they do. And ooh, allura's parents in the backround her mom looks just like her.

There goes my headcanon that the original green paladin was olkari. But also ooh backstory.

But hey I think Pidge's predecessor was also a girl? And Lance's is... also very obvious. Alchemy!

Oh wait it is Haggar, and that WAS, indeed, the Galra homeworld. Classic „overdid the black magic“ backstory & went bonkers backstory Though Zarkon seemed to be lowkey authoritarian & obsessed with destructive potential well before he went bananas. I suppose the series has stuck to classic tropes.

Interesting choice to top it off with the backstory & let that be the twist/ finale with the character arcs themselves being left dangling – Last we saw of Keith, it seemed like whatever sense he had that he was getting the hang of it had just kinda crumbled away again and he seems so miserable, like, glancing away even at the end of the conversaton with little resembling a resolution.

And we still don't know what actually happened to Shiro. Did we even see how Zarkon got his scar?

Also, did our Evil Overlord Couple make Lotor before or after they turned into zombies?

#voltron #voltron legendary defender #keith #shiro #hunk #lance #pidge #zarkon #haggar #voltron spoilers

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sabraeal · 7 years

Note

Some shidan and garrack ;w; discussing, drinking, just more of them and maybe have shidan ACTUALLY kiss the lady. Uhh idk if you’ve incorporated them modern au but if not canon verse is good! :)

“Higata.”

Garrack’s TA startles, and she stifles a laugh. He’s a high-strung kid, more limbs than sense at times, but a hard-worker nonetheless. He doesn’t have the natural aptitude of Ryuu, or the studious heart of Shirayuki, or even Obi’s gift of lateral thinking, but he’s the sort of kid that doesn’t give up. He’ll throw himself against a wall before he’ll walk away from it – or, she can’t help thinking a bit uncharitably, go around it.

Listen, they’ll be hand-pouring gels for month to make up the cost of the boxes he went through only to realize he was using the wrong fucking ones. For fuck’s sake, they have a chart.

Higata cranes his neck to look back at her, his chair creaking beneath him. She holds back a grimace. That thing is probably older than him. When was the last time the labs got new furniture? Before her time, probably.

“Is everything set for the conference?” she asks, leaning against his cube. For once the Eastern Wetlands Conservation Conference was withing driving distance; usually they chose much nicer places to have their February conference – like Miami, or Charlotte, or anywhere without windchill – but local politics, namely Brecker’s last appeal, had made the planners select a location according to the statement it would make.

“Ah-ah!” Higata pours himself out of the seat, all unrestrained limbs. It’s impressive he can organize them in a way that keeps him standing. “Yes, Professor. All set. And ah…” He scratches at the back of his neck thoughtfully. “I got Professor Weise’s rental through Monday. He can just drop it off at the airport before his flight.”

“Great.” Garrack taps on the corner of his cube with a grin. “Shidan will be going over his recent run of data with me this weekend, so can you schedule a lab meeting for when I get back?”

He nods, eager to please as always. She was always good at picking the obedient ones. “Sure. I’ll get it set up for Tuesday.”

He turns back to his work, and it’s testament to how inoffensive he usually is that she’s almost back to her office before she realizes the problem.

“Higata,” she says, poking her head around the corner of his cube. He nearly falls out of his chair, but she’s too focused to care. “Is there a reason you’re not setting it for Monday?”

He blinks at her owlishly. “Oh, er, I just thought you might…um…”

“We don’t have all day, Higata.”

“I thought you’d want to spend Monday with Professor Weise,” he blurts out, turning a ripe cherry-red. “If I, uh, saw my girlfriend as little as you saw the professor, I’d need a day for, um, just us…”

Garrack stares. “Shidan is my what now?”

“He isn’t –?” Higata looks as if he’d rather be anywhere else rigth now, and Garrack can’t help but find the feeling mutual. “I thought he was your boyfriend.”

A long silence stretched between them.

“Make the meeting Monday,” she says, spinning on her heel. “First thing.”

“Right. Oh, professor, by the way –”

She glances back over her shoulder.

“It’s supposed to snow tonight.” She waits for Higata to come to his point. “Will Professor Weise be all right driving in that?”

“Shidan?” She grins. “Oh, I’m sure he’ll be fine.”

Shidan arrived two hours late, roller-bags wheels clogged and knit-wear choked with snow. He shakes his great mop of hair, spraying water and slush all over her and her mudroom, and says, “This place is godforsaken.”

“So dramatic,” Garrack teases, enjoying his struggle with his boots. That’s a better view than she’s seen in a while. “It’s just a little snow.”

He sends her a dirty look from between his legs, still locked in a tussle with one set of water-logged bootlaces. “There’s six inches of fluff out there. I nearly died twice.”

“Twice?” She lifts her eyebrows and shrugs. “That’s hardly a blizzard at all.”

“This place has changed you.” He tosses his boots onto the plastic trays she uses for drying shoes and sets himself onto divesting himself of his layers. “And not for the better.”

“You say that like a man who doesn’t want the brandy in the liquor cabinet,” she remarks, grinning as he drops his last coat to the floor. “You know, it’s just Massachuetts, not Alaska. You don’t need three polar fleece and a parka.”

“It’s freezing out there,” he insists. “Men die in these temperatures.”

“Men can also drown in an inch of water, but they have to be stupid to do it.” She jerks her head over her shoulder. “Come on, let’s warm you up.”

“Ugh,” he groans, rubbing his hands.He pushes past her into the living room, shoulder knocking against her. “Great idea. Brandy, right?”

Garrack frowns. “You’re not even going to read into that a little?”

“I’ve known you for almost fifteen years,” he calls back, collapsing on her couch. “Given the option between sex and alcohol, I know exactly which one you’re likely to offer me.”

She does not feel disappointed. “Well,” she grumbles, “you could at least pretend to be shocked.”

It takes two glasses for Shidan to thaw enough to ask, “Do you know what talks you’re going to?”

“Ah, yes.” She’s finally settled into her chair – a circular, pillow-nest thing, precariously balanced on top of its base – and he has another thing coming if he thinks she’s moving anywhere for the next few hours, especially to find her talk notes. Her back still aches from shoveling. “I printed out the schedule and circled a bunch.”

His mouth cants, smile sly. “Is it physically possible for a human to see all of them in a weekend?”

“I did that once – once – and suddenly I’m some sort of talk-attending robot?”She’s missed this, his teasing. She forgets how human he makes her feel.

He’s looking at her from out under hooded lids, his smile curving fondly. “You’ve done it three times, and you wish. I should be glad we didn’t do robotics, otherwise you’d probably built copies of yourself so you could go to all of them.”

“If I’d gone into genetics, I probably could do the same thing.”

“See,” he laughs, pausing to take a sip of his brandy. “The world should thank turtles, really.”

“And I’m guessing that you have no plan,” she drawls, watching as he ducks his head to hide his grin. “Are you just planning on following me around like a lost duckling?”

“I’m not lost if I mean to be following you around,” he says, so easily, in the sort of way she never could manage. She’s not good at affection; not the long-lasting kind, the kind that matters. “After all, I didn’t fly this far just for turtles.”

Her hands are nerveless around her glass, numb. She s trying excruciatingly hard not to think of Higata and his stupid, stupid comments “You didn’t?”

He sends her an incredulous look over his rim. “Garrack, I could go to any number of niche conferences in an academic year. Most of them in places god hasn’t abandoned for, I don’t know, the hubris of man. Whatever it is that makes him not like Boston.”

“The Patriots,” she supplies, though she’s not sure where it came from, since her mind is certainly not working.

He shrugs. “That’s fair.”

She times it just right; he’s taking another sip when she says, “You know, my lab thinks we’re fucking.”

Shidan splutters alcohol over her reclaimed-wood coffee table. “W-what? How did that happen?”

Garrack shrugs, a thousand times more casual than she feels. “I don’t know. Higata just assumed that I’d be spending Monday all day in bed with you.”

His eyes are wide, and he is so very, very still. She’s watching him so closely that she sees him relax each of his muscles individually, as if he has to remind each one that tense is not its natural state. “Huh,” he says finally, his voice an octave higher than normal. “Strange.”

“Mm.” She’s hardly thinking when she says, “But then again, he doesn’t know that you rejected me.”

“When I –?” Shidan bolts upright on the couch, his face flushed. “W-when I did what now?”

“In undergrad,” she clarifies, her heart is certainly not beating madly in her breast. She’s a grown woman, it’s been over a decade, she doesn’t care. It’s – she’s over it now. “When we were at –”

“You were drunk!” he blurts out, his eyes so wide she can almost see the white all around. “I thought you were – you never said anything the next day!”

“You said, and I quote, don’t make this weird.” She sets down her glass so its not so obvious how her hands shake. “Why would I go and bring it up sober?”

“I thought you – you didn’t remember.” Her runs a hand through his hair, leaving sweaty runnels through the strands. “You just said, I think we should fuck. That seemed like a very drunk thing to say! A very pass-out drunk thing.”

“Shidan, I was in my twenties.” She can’t even look at him; she has to stare somewhere toward her kitchen so he’s not even in her line of sight. God, she wishes she could conveniently stop existing for the next ten minutes. “I liked you, and I was not good at emotion!”

“You’re not very good with emotion now!” he snaps, voice cracking. “Why are you – why would you bring this up?”

“I don’t know, I just – it seemed funny I guess?” she tries desperately. “I didn’t think – I thought you wouldn’t even remember, I don’t know!”

The silence that stretches between them is painful; shewants to fill it with – with something,with anything that will make him forget that she ever brought it up. Shereaches for her glass, hoping it will at least numb the agony of this moment –

Shidan sits down on the table in front of her, handsgripping his knees. He’s inescapable this close, and one look at him tells herhe knows, that he’s not letting her squirm out of this witha few drinks and some comment about her big mouth.

“Garrack,” he says, so softly. She wishes he would stopbeing so close; she wishes he would lean in closer. “Do you still like me?”

She fidgets with the pillow, staring at his knees. “We’refriends, so –”

“Garrack.” He leans forward, wrapping his hands around therim of the chair above. It shudders a little under his weight. “Do you like me?”

She can’t avoid his gaze now, so she stares him right in theeyes, trying hard not to blink. “No,” she lies.”

She’s sure that will drive him away, that he’ll put spacebetween them, but –

He grins, and leans it.

Even though her eyes are wide open, she still doesn’tbelieve it’s happening until his lips brush over hers, until she feels just thegentlest flick of his tongue over the bottom of her lip.

“Shidan,” she breathes, leaning up into him, and that’senough, it’s enough; he’s putting aknee between hers, pressing down into her –

The chair tilts with a wooden shunk, and they both tumble back, stuck inside the nest. Shidan ishalf sprawled over her, half spilled off to the side, and he stares over at herwith wide eyes. Definitely not a partof his plan.

That’s fine. She’s good at improvisation.

“Oh good,” she says, twisting so that she’s above him. “I’vealways wondered if this chair could fit two.”

#anonymous #garrack/shidan #the wide florida bay #100 days of obiyuki (and more)#my fic #modern au #The Wide Florida Bay #i feel like in the manga #that we're going to find out garrack was just as hung up on him #as he was on her #and shidan is going to cuss himself out #for not making a move for literally forever #also if you have not seen these nest chairs #they are amazing #and dangerous #i have ended up in nest mode so many times i cannot even say #i've taken two or three smaller friends with me by mistake

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reallifeblogthings-blog · 6 years

Text

COMM 3P18 Blog #2

Welcome back! Did you miss me... Just kidding. As the week has continued on so has my learning in COMM 3P18. First focusing on specific media rating and target market, to interpreting and decoding such mass media texts. Using my own personal examples with the help of real-world examples I have noticed that media in today society is basically a commodity, and in order for an item to be sold like one, you need to know what consumers need. It has become clear that we “need” more than what we really do.

I think back to when I was a kid, watching TV with my two older brothers, and as soon as a commercial were to come on, one of us would go to the bathroom, or grab snacks, and would only rush back at the sound of one of us hollering “IT’S BACK ON!.” This is that notion of “free” television where we as the consumer are forced to sit through an advertisement as a price to pay. As stated in the textbook “at the same time that the television program is being “sold” to the audience, the attention of the audience is being “sold” to advertisers”, the audience commodity (Sullivan, Pg 81). But now, commercials are something that I rarely see due to streaming services such as Netflix. Netflix has found a new was to generate revenue while still giving the consumer (me) what I want. Through a monthly fee, I am able to watch a movie as a whole, I am able to pause or play it whenever I would like. Netflix was the beginning of more streaming services, so they also had to keep up with producing more and more media content for viewers to keep up. I found this similar to a news piece we looked at in lecture. “Why Youtube Content Creators are Burning Out” was an article based on youtubers who have become too stressed to churn constant content out for their viewers. Although Netflix has multiple people helping to create content, it has become clear that they now have harder competition that is currently willing to put out content that Netflix may not be able to get certain rights to. So similarly, Netflix and Youtubers cant stop producing content without their viewers going elsewhere. Now that it’s spooky season (October), my roommates and I are looking for classic Halloween movies to get us into the mood of the season. The other day we were looking specifically for “Halloweentown”, a movie we all used to watch when we were younger. We first checked Netflix, but to our surprise, it was not available, so without even a flinch, we went to a separate streaming service to find the movie that we craved to watch. This is a perfect example of the implication that large media sources have when they can't produce the content media audiences crave, we look elsewhere. This is why uses and gratifications of audiences have become an increasingly important topic in the world of media. We have smaller niche audiences all over the world who crave different things, and by using the research of uses and gratification companies are able to research what audiences members want to get from those specific mediated forms. I believe this is why the example of Walmart was used in the textbook because Walmart even though it's not a media source, is the king of using consumer information to fit the needs of what they want in the future.

Uses and gratifications are becoming an increasingly popular subject as the world becomes more technologically advanced, it is after all the understanding of why people use specific media to satisfy certain needs. As Sullivan states “Uses and gratifications relies upon self-reports of individuals, information about individuals’ inner states of mind is only accurate insofar as they can readily identify their needs and can recall them” (Sullivan, Pg.122). I found this interesting because the more I thought about this quote the more I realized how accurate it is with the people around me, and things I hear around me. In class we looked at Herzog, who asked why women listened to the radio, now although this was is the 40’s, I believe there would be similar results if you asked the same when listening to the radio now. The results revealed it was an emotional release, a fantasy as wishful thinking, and a source of advice.

During the summer I similarly was using the radio for entertainment, when I heard a story that had a similar outcome. Now when I listen to the radio, personally it’s something to pass time as well as create amusement throughout my drive, I never sought advice from the radio hosts. I was listening to 99.9 virgin radio while driving to work, mostly to listen to music. Yet, after a song, the hosts came on and started to talk about people who need dating advice. The hosts ended up calling an audience member who had written into them earlier, concerning a recent date she went on, but never received a callback. The woman explained how the date went wonderfully, she even went home with the man at the end of the night, this is what lead her to wonder why she never received a callback. I found it quite odd she chose to call a radio station for advice rather than someone who is closer, such as a family member or friend. I then thought back to what Herzog said, and how in that specific study women would also use the serial radio as a source of advice. This must be due to her own self-fulfillment to be gratified by a large audience of others (those who listen to the radio) through the media source, which would be the radio in this case. It may also depend on her situation. This gratification can be due to the fact she is embarrassed to tell someone who is close to her, so instead seeks help from another source to ensure she receives an emotional release.

The reading in the past week of 3P18 was surprisingly interesting, and truly grasped my attention when it comes to watching movies or tv shows. We recently learned about the hit Netflix series “Dexter” which originally aired on Showtime. I’ve never watched an episode of Dexter, but after just a few previews I found myself extremely interested in watching this show in the future. The narrative adds a twist to the character Dexter Morgan, who is a professional blood-spatter analyst, but also a serial killer to those who “deserve it”. As I watched more and more previews I couldn't help agree with Dexter's character, even if I would personally do something so brutal myself. I then related it to Bandura’s theory of Moral Disengagement. Bandura suggests that we as viewers “use rationality to either excuse immoral behavior to redefine it as more” (Decoding The Code, 2016). I was able to simply redefine the actions of Dexter killing a human, to make it seem “ok” based on the fact he was killing bad people. If I found his character utterly appalling or maybe had different views on how criminals should be treated, then my thoughts would fit under a certain moral domain when I examine character like Dexter. Thus, if it weren't for the way I thought about criminals (I HATE THEM..) then my moral code would change my view of Dexter to be more negative. I started to think about shows I specifically watch, such as Grey's Anatomy, and the Office when talking about the modes of audience engagement. While watching Grey’s Anatomy, I get extremely attached to characters, crying when they cry, happy when they are. It truly makes me feel as though I am part of the show. This would be considered under the first mode of audience engagement Transparent: where I “get lost in the fictional world of the text” (Granelli, Zenor 2018, Pg. 5058). This is when I put myself a little too deep in the show, with the strong emotions that I feel towards the characters. For example, 5 main characters in the show got into an extremely bad plane crash, two characters died, while others terribly injured. This episode was extremely upsetting and even made me shed a few tears when it came to some of my favorite characters dying. Now, on the other hand, The Office, a comedic show, I don’t find myself shedding tears much. The characters in the office are awkward and almost uncomfortable to watch which leads me to have less of an emotional attachment to the characters. I find this show connects more to the second mode of audience engagement, referential. Referential is when I as an individual “read the text as like life… Assessing the meaning of the text, the individual moves outside of the text itself, and compares it his or her own real life for interpretation” (Granelli, Zenor 2018, Pg. 5058). For example, the boss Michael is an odd character, truly a loose cannon, while Pam the front desk receptionist is a down to earth woman. I think I compare well to Pam, in the way she handles certain things Michael's character does. Michael once decided he was going to jump off the office building into a bouncy castle to make a point about suicide. Pam eased him down to talk him out of the situational pretending she had a “gift” for him, and he had to come down to receive it. Now, I don't work in an office nor plan on realistically having a boss like that, so I was able to move outside of the text itself, and compare if I would do the same thing in such a situation.

Now, I know that I “need” all these media to keep me entertained, but until we looked at audiences in the news I had never really thought about how we are appealed to an audience member... What do producers know about me? and how? According to Bloomberg, there has been a huge controversy over Netflix tailoring its movie or tv show promotions based on race. “Netflix users have complained that the service is trying to manipulate them into watching certain programs by trouting secondary characters that are the same race as the viewer” (Holman, Shaw 2018). Now, personally, I have never noticed this… I also am a white female, which makes it even more difficult for me to notice something like this. But, it did get me thinking about what images Netflix “recommends” to me as a user to watch a specific Netflix program. Is this an example of culture industry? The culture industry is defined as the “process of manufacturing dominant ideologies” (Sullivan 2013, Pg 139). This theory was discovered a while ago, based on ruling class, which was white males. It’s difficult to say if Netflix chooses to base movies and TV shows off this considering I enjoy a lot of the content produced, also, due to the fact I wouldn't necessarily call myself a feminist. But with still wondering how media producers know what I want to watch and how I did, in fact, find a connection in the intertextuality of the media. When we as individuals see logos, we are able to quickly associate a brand with a specific meaning. Netflix, although I don’t notice the potential racial recommendations, I do notice them pushing their own TV shows. I have never enjoyed a Netflix original, and even though I don’t watch them, Netflix constantly puts them on my recommended page. But, as the brand signifier “Netflix” I now know not to even bother with watching a preview or giving the show or movie another chance due to my understanding that those show won't be much good (personal opinion). It’s clear that Netflix makes more money when we watch an original, so this is why they push so hard for us as viewers to watch it. But since I now associate the word Netflix on the image of a new tv show or movie as a Netflix original, I can avoid the disappointment of their terrible productions.

We know media producers need us to watch or go on their content, and now it is clear that we need media to fulfill our own needs. To fill a need, media needs to find what we seek in the first place, and through ratings and recommendations, media can find what we like and why we like it. But, with our great need, will companies like Netflix be able to keep up with their consumers? I guess we will see.

Works Cited

Good, J. (2018). Lecture on Audience studies. Personal Collection of J. Good, Brock

University, St. Catharines ON.

Granelli, S., & Zenor, J. (2016) Decoding “The Code”: Reception theory and moral judgment

of Dexter. International Journal of Communication, 10, 5056-5078.

Sullivan, J. (2013). Media Audiences: Effects, users, institutions and power. Sage Publications

Inc., New York, NY

Sundar, S., & Limperos, A. (2013). Uses and grats 2.0: New gratifications for new media.

Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 57(4), 504-25.

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